My littlest one can count to ten now. It goes like this -- "1, 2, 3, 4, Mommy, Daddy, 10." She's pretty much brilliant. I couldn't be more proud. She's pretty much a shoe-in for the cookie community. Because, let me tell you -- the place is full of brilliance. I'm not sure if you've heard of Callye from Sweet Sugarbelle or Jill from Jill FCS ... (Ha ha ha ha ha ha!!! Best joke ever.)... but I'm kind of obsessed with their styles. They both have such a fantastic way of keeping things SIMPLE with just the right amount of perfect details that make a design completely...PERFECTION. They are like the Michelangelo and the DaVinci of the cookie world. (If only they had 2 more friends and were green -- they could make a mildly entertaining television cartoon series about decorating cookies underground while solving crimes...) Stop distracting me! My point is - I've always wanted to be just like them. I've studied them. And stalked them. Once,

You guys. I've been doing this "competitive fitness" challenge thing with some fellow cookie decorators. It's all about being healthier and sleeping and eating vegetables and blah, blah, blah. Pretty much it's turned into the grown up version of kids on the playground daring each other to eat dirt, except it's brussels sprouts and bok choy instead of dirt. The down side is that as adults, we can't just spit it out and high five everyone and call it a success. We have to actually EAT it. And pretend like we're totally cool, responsible adults that eat vegetables for snacks. You know, because we've just trained our bodies to crave healthy, responsible foods. And we definitely don't eat ice cream just because we're stressed out because every person in the house is screaming at us including ourselves and we don't even know how that happened. Responsible adults don't do that. They eat ice cream from a tiny little glass jar on a stand

Real talk here. I love decorating cookies. I love making that gorgeous chocolate dough. And I love eating it while pretending that it's for "quality control." I love the way my house smells while they are baking. I love feeling like a mad scientist when I mix up my colors. And the way the final detail makes an entire cookie suddenly RIGHT. But more than anything... I love the people that I meet because of decorating cookies. It's a big old world out there. And one of my very first and dearest friends from the beginning of my days of cookie decorating who basically started this cookie decorating revolution has ONCE AGAIN blown that world wide open by starting an innovative, adorable, and incredibly functional line of cookie decorating tools and cutters. But I can't tell you who she is. Just kidding! You already know! It's Callye from Sweet Sugarbelle! Her products debuted earlier this spring for online purchasing. And just last week -- they arrived

I forget lots of things. Like the carton of eggs in the grocery bag I left at the bottom of the stairs all day because I thought there were only pretzels in the bag. Or the load of laundry I put in the washer 3 days ago. (Except now, I'm just pretending that I forgot about it because actually, I'm a little afraid that the laundry monsters are growing in my forgotten laundry. And as soon as I open the lid they are going to jump out and eat me. And my ice cream.)  One time last year, I forgot that my children didn't have school on a Friday. And totally got them up and ready and half way there before my neighbor mentioned that maybe we didn't need to do that. I forget to change my shirt after baking and before running to the grocery store. I forget where I've parked my car. Or that I didn't even drive in the first place. I've even forgotten about 2 dozen hand-cut baked cookies that needed decorating...for AN ENTIRE YEAR. But I did NOT forget th

I've learned a lot about myself since I started decorating cookies. For one thing, I am SUPER impatient. I mean...all this time, I just thought I was regular impatient. And then I met royal icing. And it told me all about it's "required dry time" and I was like, "I don't understand the words you are saying!" And royal icing was all, "DRY-ING TAH-IME." I just kind of stared at it and it just kind of stared at me. To be perfectly honest, it was an awkward way to begin a relationship. Then I bought my royal icing a dehydrator and never looked back. Also...I'm a smidgeon obsessive-compulsive. Not in a good way where I clean everything up and keep it all neat and stacked and color-coded in alphabetical order.  But I have a certain way of doing things that might possibly be magic. Or good luck. Or the opposite of badness and despair. So even though I have no way of proving this magic-ness, I simply cannot deviate from my system. And that

You know when you go to the grocery store and you see your neighbor and you're all like, "Oh my gosh! How ARE YOU?! I swear we never see each other anymore except for neighborhood garbage day when we were all getting rid of our junk together. Man, we really bonded over trying to get that enormous television from the 70's- that could also have been mistaken for the wardrobe to Narnia - high enough into the air to actually get it into the dumpster! My gosh! Did you even realize that Old Man Brewster knew words like that?! Hilarious!! Also, how awesome is it that we live in the last neighborhood in America that has a neighbor-man we call 'Old Man Brewster'? I love this world! Ha ha ha ha... Ahh. It's great to see you! I've got to get going...." And then three seconds later you turn the corner into the next aisle...and there they are again...half way down. And you have to make a decision -- pretend you don't see them and that you also suddenly fo

Let's just cut to the chase here. I'm obsessed with these paper clip cookies. It's a little unhealthy. But not like eating-a-pound-of-butter-straight-from-the-fridge unhealthy. More like eating-half-a-pound-of-butter-at-room-temperature unhealthy. You know, because that's SO much better. These cookies are by far my favorite back-to-school cookies. Mostly because they FINALLY made use of a "cutter" I've been waiting to use for YEARS. Not "years" with lowercase letters. We are talking "YEARS" with all uppercase letters. That's way more than just "years." And they are the perfect fit for it. And easy. And brightly colored. And who doesn't love brightly colored?! Sad people. That's who. And also people who can control their impulses. Unlike me. That's why I don't have a Costco membership. Because my cart would be piled high with brightly colored items that I *need* based merely on the fact that they a

As much as I'd like summer to last forever, I'm seeing all the signs that it is crawling to an end. You know the signs -- There is a point in the day where I can actually exist outside without envying life on other planets... The grass starts to come back to life after it's near death experience with the endless summer sun.... The pile of towels and swimsuits has grown into a mountain that can no longer be side-stepped, and in fact, may actually be coming alive. It's hard to say with any certainty since I avoid looking at it in the hopes that it will go away on its own... My children start arguing with each other before they even leave their bedrooms in the morning... And I've gotten my traditional THIRD email letting me know that I still haven't registered my children for school. You know, because registration was a day ago. And I still haven't done it. And do you want to know WHY I haven't done it? It's because I'm protesting the

If any of you have met me in person, you know I'm not a stranger to peer pressure. As in... I pressure people to do things all the time. It's shameful. And I should stop. Except that peer pressure totally works. And usually I only peer pressure people into doing things that deep down, they just really want to do anyway. And then everyone is happy because I'm happy. Or...something like that. Basically, that's how I met Delorse . She makes amazing cookies. AMAZING cookies. But she didn't have a Facebook page. So I relentlessly pressured her into making one until she gave in just so I would stop bugging her every single day of her life. And really, you should all be thanking me because I'm not sure if I mentioned it, but that girl is AMAZING. You've probably seen her gorgeous bow cookies everywhere. I'm obsessed with her bow-style!! Like, I want to squish my computer every time I see a new cookie. As it turns out, she didn't hate me for pres